Documentary screening celebrates the life of James Connolly

THERE was a great turnout in Grace’s Irish Centre recently for a rare screening of the documentary portrait of James Connolly, which was produced in 1966 as part of the award-winning RTÉ series On Behalf of the Provisional Government.

The digitally remastered film features the reminiscences of close colleagues and family of James Connolly, including his Edinburgh-born daughter, Nora, and his niece, Mary, daughter of his Edinburgh-based fellow socialist activist, elder brother John.

The chair of the 1916 Rising Centenary Committee (Scotland), Maggie Chetty, introduced the event and thanked everyone for attending. She then introduced the historian Stephen Coyle who provided an overview of the life and politics of James Connolly.

“Connolly was one of the greatest political thinkers to emerge in the early 20th century,” he said. “He was a soldier, labourer, cobbler, journalist, trade union leader and organiser, committed socialist and feminist, intellectual, historian and military tactician.

“He was a devoted husband and father to his wife and their six children. With the support of his wife, he worked unceasingly in the struggle for national freedom, socialism and international working-class solidarity, despite the poor circumstances in which he and his family lived in the typical working-class conditions of that time.’

In his concluding remarks Mr Coyle remarked that without realising it, in 1915 James Connolly had written his own epitaph in the pamphlet The Re-Conquest of Ireland in this most fitting quote: “The needs of his time called for a man able to shake off his mind the intellectual fetters of the past, and to unite in his own person the hopes of the new revolutionary faith and the ancient aspirations of an oppressed people... and out of seemingly unpromising material ... creating the organising brain of an almost successful

revolution, the astute diplomat, the fearless soldier, and an unconquered martyr.”

Following the screening of the documentary, the audience participated in an interesting discussion about different aspects of James Connolly’s life and political convictions.

It was also announced that in partnership with Grace’s, an ambitious programme of monthly talks and film screenings covering different aspects of Irish history, especially the history of the Irish in Scotland, is in the process of being planned. This will be publicised on the 1916 Rising Centenary Committee (Scotland) Facebook page and Eventbrite.